


five

by vlieger



Series: old footie fic rewrites [4]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:24:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlieger/pseuds/vlieger





	five

**i**

"Tragedy is beautiful," Sheva tells him after they lose at Anfield. His smile is bitter, and sometimes irony hurts more than anything else. "If you can find the beauty-- " He twists his fingers around the folds of his shirt (blue, blue). "-- It's not so bad."

Micha wants to say, you would know. Not a question-- how would you know?-- because nothing speaks more clearly than the lines on his forehead, the twist of his mouth, the flicker of something depressingly familiar across his eyes. Sheva knows, everybody knows that. 

Micha thinks, there's too much there to learn, understand, fight through. He doesn't have the energy for it. Behind them both is what matters, but here is something new, uncharted-- beautiful. 

What he does say is this: "That's good. I thought I'd left all that behind."

**ii**

"You don't look happy," says Micha. It's not a question this time, either-- it's never a question. Micha doesn't ask questions, not really. 

"You can't be famous if you're happy," says Sheva. "Nobody's interested."

"So you're unhappy on purpose?" Micha laughs. 

Sheva doesn't answer.

**iii**

Sheva's never had faith. Not really. He's learned the hard way that faith has a tendency to warp one's perception of reality. (There's a pattern to it, sickeningly worn.) These days, his only faith lies in the steadfast denial of faith in anything (anyone). It's his new foundation. 

What he does now is try to ignore the fact that twenty years on, it's happening again. 

**iv**

Micha touches a finger to the pulse in Sheva's neck and doesn't know what to think. Maybe everybody's heart actually beats a different rhythm and nobody cares enough to notice. Maybe the only thing that's really the same is the inescapable fact that in the end, you're always on your own. 

Sometimes he wonders whether that's the reason-- whether he gave it up (no, not gave up; moved on, intentionally) because of a deep-seated, unconscious need for practice.

It's the best reason he's got for this-- this strange, detached closeness. 

**v**

Sheva likes to fuck in the darkness. Micha prefers the light. 

It's not important, and it doesn't mean anything (as hands skate over fevered skin-- through shadowed curtains or touched to dusky illumination-- fingers dipped into valleys and pulling sweat across trembling planes of muscle).

Sheva likes to bite on Micha's bottom lip. Micha prefers tugging at Sheva's hair.

It's not important, and it doesn't mean anything (when they cry out and neither understands what the other is saying).


End file.
